


Resonance

by streetsuss_serenade



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-28 06:37:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7628857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/streetsuss_serenade/pseuds/streetsuss_serenade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray is using some really tortured metaphors to process his time in Iraq. He doesn't see why he should have to suffer them alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resonance

“I think I came back from the desert with ghosts,” Ray says when Nate picks up the phone.

“Okay” Nate says cautiously.

“Not like, actual spirits” Ray clarifies “Nobody’s following me around trying to get me to help them with their unfinished business. That would be fucking cool, actually. Just, like, you know, something around the corner in the dark and the hair prickling on the back of your neck for no reason, and fucking waking up with someone sitting on your chest and not being able to breathe.”

Nate hums noncommittally, but Ray heard him get a glass of water, knows that Nate is settling in to listen to him, so he goes on. 

“And it sucks or whatever, but the thing is, homes, I used to think that everybody came back with ghosts, right? But the the other day, I was talking to Walt, well, fighting with Walt, but whatever, we’re cool now. The point is, Walt doesn’t have ghosts. Walt has fucking wounds, like Fisher- king- style, never healing bullshit that is always going to hurt and bleeds when people bump him the wrong way. Which, if he’d just tell us these things, we could fucking avoid bumping him, but that’s Walt for you.” 

Ray sighs dramatically here, but Nate offers no sympathy, “I don’t know, maybe everybody already knows about Walt’s fucking stigmata, and I’m the only asshole stumbling around poking him in the wrong places, but that’s totally not the point. The point is, I think everybody brought back their own fucking souvenirs. I figured out Walt, and Brad’s totally fucking obvious, so...”

“He is?” Nate asks.

“Duh, dude. Brad came back with like serious fortifications. Walls, and boobytraps, and those Rapunzel thorns, and all that shit. But that’s the thing, right? Like those things will fucking keep any bad guys away, but they also keep you in. It isn’t like Rapunzel was like waltzing off to Starbucks to hang out with her friends or whatever.”

“I’m not sure that medieval Germany had a lot of Starbucks, but I take your point.” 

“Poke said that Brad has turned down his last three invitations to hang, homes. That shit is not on.”

It sounds like Nate’s about to ask Ray a follow up question, but Ray’s just getting to his point, so he keeps going “But the thing is, I’ve totally been wracking my excellent brain, and I can’t fucking figure out what you brought back. And don’t give me that shit about not bringing shit back, only losing shit, because I already fucking know that story.”

Ray knows what Nate lost. Belief. Optimism. Innocence. Purpose. It’s the same for all of them, even if it isn’t. Ray knows about that already. He doesn’t want to talk about it, okay? 

“I mean, I read your book just like everybody else, dude. I get it. I just also want to know what gifts Operation Iraqi Clusterfuck left under your tree, since you were such a good little officer.” 

Nate’s silent for a long moment, and Ray doesn’t know if he’s thinking, or if he’s pissed, or if he’s just fallen asleep on the other end, because shit, it is three am where he is, but then Nate says, quietly, 

“Anger. I think, going by your metaphor, you’d say I brought back anger.” 

And yeah. Fuck, yeah. That’s it exactly. Nate before was fueled by faith and righteousness, and Nate today is smaller, somehow, and sharper, and that’s exactly it. Iraq gave Nate a deep well of unquenchable fury.

“Well, that sucks. Sorry, man.”

And Nate laughs a little at that, because what else do you do, really, and Ray continues “But, I mean, it also gave you us, so not a total loss.”

“Brad might argue with you there,” Nate says. 

“Whatever. That fucker never knows what’s good for him. He’s lucky to have us as his….whatever the fuck you call this thing we’re doing.” 

All four of them might still be puzzling through the little surprises the war left in each of their psyches, but their time in Iraq had also formed this weird little cadre that shouldn’t work, but did, and now Ray had three people in the world who would absolutely pick up the phone if he called them in the middle of the night because he needed to talk about the really tortured metaphors he was using to process his return to civilian life. 

They’d all respond differently, sure (Brad would poke him into energy and indignation until he was ranting about something and feeling better for it; Walt would share his own experiences and offer comfort; and Nate would listen, endlessly patient, like Ray’s three am truthtelling was important on its own right,) but they’d all pick up.

And Nate’s not really one for drunken (tired, despondent, whatever, Ray said he didn’t want to talk about it, didn’t he?) middle of the night phone calls, but, whenever Nate’s emails cross the line from stressed to brittle or from amused to cynical, Ray sends him long rants about the state of America’s youth and links to the very best porn he can find, so that’s basically the same thing.

“I think people call it having friends, Ray,” Nate answers wearily, but that’s not it, not really, and Ray tells him so. 

“Friends are people who enjoy socializing. They have like common interests and shit. You can’t even try to tell me that Brad fucking likes talking to any of us...except for you, homes, but you do insist on being the exception to every fucking rule, so you don’t count.”

Nate’s laughing when he says “I hate to break it to you, Ray, but I’m pretty sure that Brad likes talking to Walt too,” because Nate is an asshole, and he thinks Ray’s pain is funny.

“Whatever” Ray says, infusing it with the full force of his eye roll. “It’s not small talk and enjoying boggle, homes. And don’t fucking try to tell me it’s family, because, fuck that. Everyone knows that family is fraught and compulsory and shit.”

“Does it matter what it’s called?” Nate asks, through a yawn, which Ray thinks he should probably feel guilty for, and he does kinda, but “yeah, dude! If you can’t name a thing, then you don’t know what it really is. That’s like, Aristotle, homes!”

Ray thinks that Nate should be more impressed that Ray knows about Aristotle’s theories about the relationship between thoughts and objects, but Nate’s too busy being too clever for someone who got woken up at three in the morning, because the next thing out of Nate’s mouth is:

“Resonance, Ray. If you don’t like friendship or family, then just think of it as all of us being on resonant frequencies.”

And that’s, huh, that’s good. It works. And Ray must be feeling better, because somewhere up the line, this stopped being about Ray trying to get Nate confess dark truths, and started to be about Ray getting Nate to laugh, which is why the next thing out of Ray’s mouth is “That’s really fucking gay, LT” and Nate does laugh, surprised. Ray flushes with triumph. He loves that particular laugh; Nate Fick is a hard man to surprise, and Ray’s a recon marine, he endeavors to be excellent at everything he does.

“Do you think you can sleep now?”

“No” Ray answers honestly, “but I think I can do something productive while I’m not sleeping.”

“Okay, then. Talk to you soon,” and, as Nate hangs up the phone, Ray realizes that that is not a question or a promise. It is its own truth. And that won’t exorcise his ghosts, but it’s enough, for now.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm dumping a lot of half finished works here, with the hope that they will get out of my brain. This is one of them. I don't think I've got Ray's voice quite right, but I like the central idea.


End file.
